Downtime refers to the time when the system is not available. While the hydraulic system is under maintenance or unavailable for various reasons, your business won’t fetch you any revenue. So hydraulic downtime is costly. But fortunately, by following some tips and tricks to balance or reduce the hydraulic downtime cost to some extent.
Apart from the direct costs related to equipment breakdowns like profit loss and low team morale, there are also indirect costs like overtime wages, missed deadlines of production or any work, and fines or penalties. So this article comes with tips that help you to reduce hydraulic downtime. Let’s get started.
The main cause of downtime is a lack of maintenance. So downtime can be avoided by different types of maintenance.
Be ready to carry out different maintenance solutions.
Though some downtime or work stoppage is unavoidable, you can still reduce or completely prevent the unplanned malfunctions by regular maintenance. There are three types of maintenance you can carry out to your equipment that would indirectly reduce hydraulic downtime. They are
- Scheduled maintenance
- Predictive maintenance
- Preventative maintenance
Scheduled Maintenance: This type of maintenance refers to the plan already prepared priorly for each machine tool. So by this plan, you can simply check the equipment at regular intervals and thus enhance the overall productivity of the hydraulic system.
Predictive Maintenance: If you feel that you haven’t maintained the hydraulic system well, then it is predictable that the system might stop due to some failure. At this time, you need to do predictive maintenance. This maintenance type helps in keeping your equipment in good shape and prevents failure.
Preventative Maintenance: This maintenance type ensures that the equipment is kept in good condition. Various tasks included in the maintenance type are adjustments, periodic inspection, calibrations, critical equipment replacements, and basic cleanliness.
So regular maintenance is the key to avoiding unwanted downtime. So follow maintenance check up and processes by creating checklists and systems designed to streamline all to keep a check on the hydraulic tools.
Track the Overall Working of the Hydraulic System
There are three important metrics to be considered to measure the success of a hydraulic maintenance program.
Tracking the Downtime: Identity which part of the hydraulic system often fails and identify the cause of the failure and keep a note of it. Then fix the part and remember which part was repaired or replaced so that you can know which component has the chance to fail.
Calculating the Downtime Costs: Once the above step is done. Calculate how much you have spent on the part replacement or repair or labor and how much loss has happened.
Testing the Hydraulic Fluid at Regular Intervals: Contaminated hydraulic fluids are the main reason the hydraulic system fails. So do fluid analysis using diagnostic tools and replace the hydraulic fluid. If this is done, you can prevent hydraulic failure.
Information Sharing and Taking Accountability
If you are working as a company, there will be multiple teams. That said, it is crucial to share information and insights about the hydraulic system’s working with each team. For instance, if there is a scheduled meeting, it is crucial to share information about it so that each team will come up with information about the system’s condition. And these insights can result in reducing downtime.
A quick check-up to analyze the working of the hydraulic system are
- Check the hydraulic oil at regular intervals
- Use appropriate filter elements
- Analyze the results of oil analysis
- If replacing oil, make sure you filter it
- Clean the Electric hydraulic pump before you inject new oil
- Also, install breathers filters in the hydraulic system.
Before we say goodbye, we ought to tell you that by following the tips given in this article, you will cut the hydraulic system downtime cost to a considerable level. So make sure you follow it and save your money. Thanks for reading through.